Working Hours

Lineman Ernie Lopez has been rousted out of bed on countless cold, rainy nights. He's climbed 100-foot utility poles in heavy winds and grabbed live electrical lines with nothing but a pair of rubber gloves to protect him. But the hardest thing Lopez has done in 20 years at Southern California Edison is walk away from a darkened apartment building while residents pleaded for their heat. It happened in late January.

The story was shocking when it broke: A Saudi princess living in luxury in Irvine suspected of keeping a Kenyan woman as a modern-day slave. When Meshael Alayban, 42, was accused in July of forcing an employee to work long hours for little pay, Orange County Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas cited the Emancipation Proclamation and said he was shocked to see such a case in California. On Friday, he conceded "the evidence does not support the charges. " The district attorney asked an Orange County judge to toss out the felony count of human trafficking against Alayban, who had been free on $5-million bail but was tracked by a GPS monitor and not allowed to leave the county.

After repeated protests to the City Council about early-morning construction noise, builders of warehouses in the Valley View Street area have agreed to follow strict work hours, officials said this week. Two warehouses are under construction, both vigorously opposed by nearby residents, and controversy about one of the buildings triggered a recall campaign against three council members. The election is set for Nov. 7.

ObamaCare, ObamaCare, you really are no fun. My employer can't afford you, and my medical plan is done. ObamaCare, ObamaCare, you surely are no joke. My working hours have been cut, my bank account is broke. ObamaCare, ObamaCare, you'll make me pay a fee. My doctor says he's going to quit. Now, who will fix my knee ? The author is a retired elementary school teacher living in Anaheim Hills. Read more: Opinion poetry by Times readers

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge issued a preliminary injunction Thursday ordering the Los Angeles Police Department and the police officers' union to "meet and confer" for 45 days to resolve a dispute over changes in officers' work hours. The injunction issued by Judge Dzintra Janavs prevents Police Chief Daryl F. Gates from instituting a new deployment plan that would allow the department to assign officers work hours different from their usual schedule.

A Superior Court judge Wednesday extended a preliminary injunction sought by the Anaheim Police Assn., which prevents the city from changing officers' work schedules. But Judge Francisco J. Firmat also required the police to post a $5,000 bond. Requiring a bond for a temporary injunction is a routine way to limit such requests, but the officers still are "not pleased," said Seth J. Kelsey, an attorney for the police group. The officers will probably decide by Monday whether to post the bond.

City and police officials said Monday that they have reached an agreement to allow the Police Department to arrange flexible work schedules for a one-year trial period. The Police Department's contract with the city is scheduled to expire June 30, and alternate work schedules had become a stumbling block in contract negotiations that started in April.

Rules designed to prevent doctors in training from having to work hours on end with little sleep have failed to reform the practice. Eighty percent of interns say they violate mandatory standards limiting them to working no more than 30 hours in a row and no more than 80 hours in a week, averaged over four weeks, according to a survey of more than 4,000 U.S. interns. The study was published in the Sept. 6 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Assn.

To get along with the rest of the world and improve the living standards of its people, Japan should focus less attention on efficiency and production and more on individual happiness and public welfare. Those were among the recommendations set forth in a five-year economic plan released today. The plan, put together by a committee of academics, government officials and business executives, is supposed to guide the government in policy-making.

Workers laboring 20 hours a day could get two mothballed AES generators running in time to meet the summer energy crunch, company officials testified Friday. There is only one problem: That violates Huntington Beach law, which restricts construction to 13 hours a day. If the law were followed, the extra energy wouldn't be available until autumn.

The Saudi princess and her family had crossed the globe in May with an entourage of servants and settled into one of the labyrinthine upscale communities that dot Orange County. In the earth-toned towers of Irvine's Central Park West, where valets park the BMWs of Saudis and Qataris, a wealthy clan spread over four condo units did not seem out of place. Then, early Tuesday, one of the servants darted out of the complex and flagged down a bus. The Kenyan woman clutched a suitcase and a pamphlet.

Pilots and a top airline group have filed a lawsuit to stop the federal government from cutting work hours for air traffic controllers this weekend, saying the furloughs will lead to travel delays of up to an hour across the country. Airlines for America, a trade group for the nation's airlines, on Friday joined a pilots association and operators of regional carriers in a suit that asks the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to prevent job furloughs called for under the so-called budget sequestration.

Less than three years ago, they were handcuffed and taken away in a case alleged to be so extensive that the district attorney called it "corruption on steroids. " But on Monday, two of the six former Bell council members accused of misappropriating money from the small, mostly immigrant town took to the witness stand and defended themselves as honorable public servants who earned their near-$100,000 salaries by working long hours behind the scenes. During her three days on the stand, Teresa Jacobo said she responded to constituents who called her cell and home phone at all hours.

Every day after work, Sandeep Lehil changes out of her lab coat and blue scrubs and sits cross-legged on a large, black pillow in her airy, quiet Los Feliz apartment. She takes two deep breaths and tries not to think about the patients she so desperately wants to help. She pushes out thoughts of the man with heart problems who left her exam room in an ambulance. And the patient who walked out when she told him his tests indicated he could have HIV. And the woman who Lehil fears is addicted to pain pills.

Los Angeles mayoral candidate Kevin James on Tuesday accused rival Wendy Greuel of unlawfully using her position as city controller to advance her campaign for mayor. Greuel's newly released appointment calendars, James said, show an alarming abundance of campaign meetings and events during business hours, often with city staff assigned to attend. "If you review the city ethics code, you can find any number of violations as a result of these activities," James told reporters outside City Hall.

KABUL, Afghanistan - Raza Gul trudges the half-mile to work through a maze of brick and mud homes, sewage streams and toddlers running naked. She's two months pregnant, and her lower back aches as she steps over ditches and eyes speeding cars. Her sister-in-law, a frail woman, shadows her. They say little. The slight wind chills Gul and she thinks about the cost of wood to heat her home and keep her four children warm. She is certain that her husband is already prowling their neighborhood hillside, hunting his first hit of opium for the day. She knows he'll walk to one of the local dealers, then sit alone in their crumbling house, roll his stash in foil and smoke.

If you ask Peggy Nairn about providing child-care services at 4 or 6 or 10, you have to be specific. "Is that a.m. or p.m.?" Nairn, the younger half of a mother-daughter duo that offers around-the-clock child care at two North Hills homes for dozens of San Fernando Valley youngsters, will respond. The 24-hour family child-care homes operated by Nairn and her mother, Penny Nairn, are constantly abuzz with children in motion.

March 24, 1990 | ROSE ELLEN O'CONNOR and GEORGE FRANK, TIMES STAFF WRITERS

Board of Supervisors Chairman Don R. Roth said Friday that the county should consider asking its judges to work longer days in exchange for a four-day week in order to ease the courtroom logjam and jail overcrowding. "I think some judges would love it," Roth said. "I asked one of my judge friends if he would start a recall against me, and he said no." Roth's comments come as the county is scrambling to find $1.1 billion for proposed new jail and court facilities.

Slacker employees don't pull their weight. But they do a great job attaching it to their bosses. Managers spend nearly 17% of their working hours dealing with poor performers, according to a report from staffing firm Robert Half International. That's basically a full day a week that could have been spent being productive. And sucking up supervisors' time isn't the only downside to subpar workers, according to the report. Of the more than 1,400 chief financial officers interviewed by Robert Half, 95% said laggards can bring down office spirits.